Generation Tech.

I sat down to write a post for Tuesday, but got distracted by my google reader. I don’t have time to read all of the blogs I love anymore. I am somewhat loathe to admit that I scan for interesting post titles and then just delete everything else. I am a zero inbox kind of person. Well, not exactly ZERO zero, but I don’t like unread messages sitting there, either in email or in my blog reader. If it’s bold, I either click on it to read it, delete it, or occasionally, especially in email when I don’t have time to scan through and delete all the hundreds of last minute SALE ENDS TODAY emails I seem to always get on Monday mornings, I select all and just hit “mark as read.” But at least they aren’t bolded.

My husband has 792 unread emails in his gmail inbox. This makes my head explode. He only clicks on the ones he wants to read, and lets everything else just sit there taking up space. (For the record, clutter is not really a problem for him. My husband is the guy who keeps receipts for McDonald’s, not in an organized OCD filed way, mind you, but crumpled up and tossed on the kitchen counter and in cupholders of cars and coat pockets and it really shouldn’t surprise him that he can’t ever find his wallet and his ID badge for work, and yet, it does.) But for email, he doesn't like expending energy just to delete something when he is capable of ignoring it.

My ten year old, who is more and more like me everyday, is definitely a zero inbox kind of guy. I tell him he doesn’t have to delete an email as soon as he reads it, but since he’s only getting emails from other ten year old boys that say things like “POKEMON 4EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR” I guess there’s not much point in trying to explain it.

The kid also deletes texts and missed calls from his phone. He can’t stand to have it flashing “missed call” at him, so he calls the number back, hangs up before he gets an answer, and then is able to delete the entire exchange. I’m not sure about the call back part, but I’ve seen him texting friends, and then deleting immediately.

I’m not particularly worried about it, however. This is not a kid hiding something. This is a kid who cannot lie. Oh, he tries, but he’s so stinkin’ bad at it I just look at him sideways and he gives it all up. Recent example:

“Mom, can I have more cake?”
“Um, no, you just get one piece.”
“But I haven’t had any yet?”
“Really? Because you just asked if you could have MORE.”
“...”
“Nice try, dude.”

So I’m not really worried about submersive texts between ten year olds who all just got phones because us moms are tired of texting each other when we want our kid to return home for dinner. Now I just text the kid. And he understand, very clearly, that he either shows up at the door inside of about three minutes, or he loses the phone.

Technology rules.

Welcome to my world.

turns out, if you normally set your phone in the cupholder of your minivan while you drive, and then you uncharacteristically bring along an open cup of water into the car with you to run errands, the odds of you dropping your phone into that cup of water after sending a quick text (at a red light!) are probably not worth betting against.

What are your kids doing online?

This past weekend, I took the kids to the park and witnessed the following conversation between a Dad and his son. My guess is the kid was around 10....

Dad - "So that video you made was really cool... I like it"

Kid - "Yeah, my friends on YouTube thought it was cool too - they commented".

Dad - "You have a YouTube account?"

Kid - "Yeah Dad, everyone my age has one"

Dad - "I need to know your account info so I can keep an eye on what you are doing?'

Kid - "Why do I have to give you that - it's my account?"

Dad - "I just want to see what you are doing?"

Kid - "I am not comfortable with that..."

Dad - "We can talk about it more at home".

My guess, the conversation and the issues were forgotten by the time Dad loaded up the four kids and headed home. My guess also is the kid is on Facebook, and many other sites, and his parents are oblivious and haven't taken the time to monitor the situation.

As parents, we all need to know what are kids are doing online and monitor it. We should know who they are connecting with, and accounts they have opened. Here is a pledge a family member passed on to me that I utilize with my tween daughter. Feel free to copy and use as you see fit... It is our duty to protect out kids...

Online Safety Pledge

Keep this pledge at your computer.

I will not give out personal information such as my address, telephone number, parents' work address/telephone number, or the name and location of my school without my parents' permission.

I will tell my parents right away if I come across any information that makes me feel uncomfortable.

I will never agree to get together with someone I "meet" online without first checking with my parents. If my parents agree to the meeting, I will be sure that it is in a public place and bring my mother or father along.

I will never send a person my picture or anything else without first checking with my parents.

I will not respond to any messages that are mean or in any way make me feel uncomfortable. It is not my fault if I get a message like that. If I do I will tell my parents right away so that they can contact the online service.

I will talk with my parents so that we can set up rules for going online. We will decide upon the time of day that I can be online, the length of time I can be online, and appropriate areas for me to visit. I will not access other areas or break these rules without their permission.

Here are the passwords, screen names and other login information that I use for each online service:

Service name: _____________________

Login: _____________________

Password: _____________________

Screen Name: _____________________

Other: _____________________

Service name: _____________________

Login: _____________________

Password: _____________________

Screen Name: _____________________

Other: _____________________

Service name: _____________________

Login: _____________________

Password: _____________________

Screen Name: _____________________

Other: _____________________

Here are some great resources.

Sources:

ISafe: www.isafe.org/

Web Aware http://www.bewebaware.ca/english/

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children:

http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Virtual_community/child_safety_online.booklet

Wired Safety: http://www.wiredsafety.org/index.html

Cyberbully: http://www.cyberbully.org/

Cyberbullying: http://www.cyberbullying.us/anecdotes.php

Safe Kids: http://www.safekids.com/

The slippery slope of the digital age

My daughter started her facebook account almost two years ago, right after she graduated from middle school. She had already had her share of myspace and bebo accounts. And we had had our share of discussions and close-calls regarding what kind of information you share online. Like, don't put pictures of yourself up on the web that make you look like a skank.

I thought I had covered all my bases regarding parenting in the digital age. But there was one (really) big point I hadn't thought of: copyright infringement.

It seems innocent enough, right? A teenager really likes a picture of themselves, one that was taken at a studio. So they take a picture of it with their digital camera or cell phone and then post it to the web. If they're really sophisticated, they'll scan the picture. But...this is theft.

We had breached the topic during my daughter's 8th grade year. Her middle school was putting on The Sound of Music. The parent producer took orders ahead-of-time for video copies of the performance. It was well known that the profits from such sales went towards funding the next year's production. But there was a snag. The Rodgers & Hammerstein Library explicitly prohibits such recordings, audio or video, from being made for any reason. I'm not sure how the parent producer didn't know this, but I sure wasn't going to participate in something that I knew was copyright infringement. My daughter was confused and sure there must be a mistake. Afterall, parents don't do things that they know are wrong, right?

It's the slippery slope that we start down once we start bending the rules. I mean, what difference does it make whether I share this photo with my friends on facebook? Or reprint it on my printer at home to send to family? Or borrow my friends CD recordings to make copies for myself?

It took a bit of thinking on my part to figure out what our household should do. Should we live by the letter of the law or should we allow ourselves to fudge things once in awhile?

I chose to live by the letter of the law. I did so because I wanted to make sure my kids knew that lying and/or stealing is not ok, no matter what.

It's easy when our kids are young:

PARENT
Did you hit your sister?

CHILD
No.

PARENT
I saw you hit your sister. Lying is wrong.

It gets a little trickier when they get older. You're at Sears or JCPenney getting portraits taken and they have a price tag for having the digital images prepared for you and giving you the copyright. But you know that you can order only a few and then scan the images and make as many prints as you want at home. And you can put them up on facebook. And no one will know because you have your privacy settings done correctly. So your teen asks you if she can put her pictures up as her profile picture.

To justify it, say this. We live in Michigan and we're in a massive recession. Times are hard and no one can afford that copyright price. And no one really pays it. It's only there so that the store can make up their losses on people like me who are more tech-savvy.

[insert sound of screeching brakes here]

STOP.

With that, I taught my daughter that it's ok to steal and lie and cheat just as long as you don't get caught. In my opinion, it's the worst thing I want to teach my children.

It was there that I realized the little things do matter.

• It does matter that Sears portrait studio owns the digital image to the cute picture you want to share with your friends on facebook.
• It does matter that you're not supposed to copy music recordings even though you can pull it off technologically.
• It does matter that MySpace and Facebook doesn't allow individuals younger than 14 years old to have an account.
• It does matter that movie ratings should reflect the age of the viewer, regardless of whether that nascent viewer has seen worse content.
• It does matter that the legal age to light a cigarette is 18.
• It does matter that the legal drinking age is 21.

See how the slippery slope can lead you down the wrong path? How can I tell my children that honesty and integrity matter in one context but not in another? That theft is ok as long as you're not stealing something that you can touch?

Most people don't worry about too much. It's like buying knock-off Gucci bags in New York City. You do it fast and quick and easy and no one gets hurt. But I realized that someone DOES get hurt. My child's ability to form sound ethics is hurt, and that is a huge problem.

So we don't post pictures to facebook, or share them on email, or print them and hang them in our home, unless we have paid for the print or the right to reproduce the image. I would wholeheartedly encourage every parent to adopt the same policy for their house rules.

No I Can't!

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be some sort of crazy political diatribe. It’s not an article about wanting Obama to win, or not wanting Obama to win, or any such election-related thing. It is however, about Obama and the thing he has to give up very, very soon. Nope, not the fancy house in Chicago. Nope, not life without a dog. When he takes office on January 20, he will be asked to give up one of his prized possessions: his Blackberry.

You may know from this post that I don’t own a Blackberry. But I understand those people, those Crackberry addicts, because I am one gutter over, swimming among the masses who can’t bear to part with their iPhones. “Hello, my name is Kirsetin and I am an iPhone addict.” For too many reasons to enumerate here, I love that device. I’m not even a device-loving kind of person. In fact, I am one step above techno-idiot, but that’s one of the many things I love about my lovely little iPhone. Without it, I am just another wandering, hungry soul. With it, I can almost always find what I need, wherever I am, even if it’s just the name and number of a nearby Chinese restaurant. (I love you Urban Spoon!)

And I am not alone. As thousand of us have embraced this new technology (whichever brand you favor), it’s become the method of quick communication. Running late? Text “almost there” and you’re done. Can’t remember if you have plans tonight? Access your calendar from your phone and plan away. Forgot your camera? No problem, snap some pics with your handy little friend.

So, to President-elect Obama, for whom this separation will last a minimum of four long YEARS, I offer my sincere sympathy. My heart goes out to you. Regardless of how it goes in office, rest assured that you will make a mint one day, when you write the book that tells the rest of us how on earth you lived without it.